MANAMA, 1 April 2004 — Advertising spending in the GCC countries was up to record $2.8 billion in 2003 from $2.4 billion in 2002 according to a recent report released by the Pan-Arab Research Center.
Television advertising accounted for 50 percent of the total expenditure with 87 percent of it directed toward satellite channels.
Print media took a 45 percent share of the market with 34 percent for the newspapers, 11 percent for magazines, and 4 percent for outdoor advertising. Only 1 percent was spent on radio advertising.
Khamis Al-Muqla, Gulf Saatchi and Saatchi chairman and managing director, said that print media was still the main vehicle to reach consumers in local markets like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. “Saudi Arabia alone accounted for 84 percent of the print advertising expenditure in 2003 with 74 percent being directed toward newspapers and 10 percent toward magazines,” he said.
“The same applies for United Arab Emirates with expenditure on print accounting for 68 percent - 52 percent newspapers and 16 percent magazines, 20 percent for television, 8 percent outdoor, 3 percent radio, and 1 percent for cinema”.
Al-Muqla added that the unexpected rise in advertising expenditure came despite the Iraq crisis that had a negative impact on the economic climate for the first six months of the year followed by the two lean summer months. “The last quarter witnessed a surge in spending that brought the average up,” he said. The increase on advertising in the gulf markets ranged between 4.5 percent and 26 percent with advertisers spending the most in Saudi Arabia.
Spending on advertising in Kuwait increased by 8.3 percent, Bahrain that had an increase of 11.4 percent, Qatar that had an increase of 12.2 percent, and Oman had a record increase of 26 percent.